The why.
If you want to save time and money - and help save the planet - start here.
You need to change. We all do. Yes, it's about the environment. Yes its about reducing traffic. But mostly its about you, your business making more money.
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And you do that by making more time. And that's what FloQuote does. It makes time. It gives you your time back.
Setting the scene
What does it do?
FloQuote receives and keeps all your messages and emails in one place.
Your potential customer sends in a video of what they want from their phone.
You send an estimate to your potential client from your phone or laptop without going to their property.
If they like the price - then you go and visit them. If they don't, you have just saved yourself a journey.
That's it.
A quote and an estimate
It helps to get the terminology right
An estimate is where you give the potential client an idea of the cost. It can still be accurate but it is not a commitment from you to keep to that price.
You are estimating the cost based on the information provided by them and this does not require a visit in the majority of cases.
A quote is a fixed price given to the client for the project. A commitment (with caveats!) to stick to this price.
So what is an e-quote?
It's just an electronic quote
Of course, it really should be called an e-estimate but that's a bit of a mouthful.
In simple terms it is a quote (estimate) that is made on a computer and sent over the internet - just like an email is an electronic version of a physical letter.
So, instead of saying ‘I will come over to give you a quote’, just say ‘I will send you an e-quote’ or even better a ‘FloQuote’ and it really means ‘I am not coming over at all but I will still get you what you need.’
But what about accurate measurement?
Yes, it's an estimate
In the first instance you are trying to get the client a price to see if they are serious buyers. You can get enough information for this from an image and easily enough from a video.
We’re not saying never visit.
We are just saying that you can remove the chaff and concentrate on the wheat by qualifying your enquiries.
FloQuote allows you to spend more time on those enquiries that are going to turn into sales. And you can do that because you are not spending your time in the van going from site to site for that initial meeting.
I'm going to miss a sale
My customers want to meet me
Am I going to miss an opportunity to sell my services by not visiting people?
OK, that’s a valid question. And that is what we thought when we first started. After all we had a service business. This isn't a software company talking. Maybe by not visiting each potential client we wouldn't have the opportunity to add value and differentiate ourselves from the competition.
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However, this was not the case. Using FloQuote to send that initial estimate we found that the closing ratios for enquiry to sale were exactly the same whether the estimator visited the client or not.
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Let us be clear with that statement.
The data shows there was no difference in the number of sales by not visiting the clients in the first instance at enquiry stage.
That is very important.
The World has changed.
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The technology has enabled anyone to send a video so the estimate is going to be accurate
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The clients mostly do not want a visit in the first instance. In fact 98% of potential client preferred to send in a video for an estimate. And they told us that it was because they were busy and didn’t have the time to meet or they were not sure that they actually wanted the service and really just wanted pricing.
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And guess what? Those people were never going to buy our services. And so we didn't have to go an see them anyway!
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What have you got to lose?
It doesn’t cost anything for up to 10 estimates every month, so just try it.
If you're not sure, try this. Next time you have a flaky customer, send a FloQuote and maybe you can save yourself a journey.
See how many trips you didn’t take and how much business you won. It’s not rocket science. Then you can determine whether it works for you or not.
I still don't get it
OK, let’s try again. In a nutshell. Imagine being able to get an accurate estimate out to your client without ever visiting the property. Think about how much time and fuel this would save over a month or a year.
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Think about how many of those quotes you spend all that time on and then send off, actually turn into orders. The industry standard is 1 in 3. That makes 2 wasted journeys – trips that were never going to end in a sale.
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Remember, a lot of those quotes go to people who just wanted to benchmark you or just needed a ball-park price in the first place.
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It really all comes down to time – people are happy to waste yours if you let them. So, use FloQuote to send the estimate and don’t visit until you have some sort of commitment from the client.